Budgets of government entities:
Are integrated with the financial accounting system.
Enable governments to demonstrate compliance with laws and to communicate performance effectiveness.
Are adopted by governments after required public hearings.
All of the above.
Which of the following statements regarding budgets of not-for-profit organizations is true?
Not-for-profit organization budgets are legal documents reflecting plans for spending resources.
A not-for-profit entity may choose to prepare a budget to demonstrate accountability to its resource providers, such as donors and grantors.
The budgeting approaches used for governments generally cannot be used by not-for-profit entities.
All of the above statements are true.
Which of the following steps would not usually be part of the budgeting process?
Heads of operating departments prepare budget requests.
The chief executive (mayor or city manager, as appropriate) formally adopts the budget, thus giving it the force of law.
One or more public budget hearings are held.
Budget officer and other central administrators review and make adjustments to departmental requests.
The budgeting principle in generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for state and local governments states that:
The accounting system should provide the basis for appropriate budgetary control
Budgetary comparison schedules should be presented as required supplementary information for the General Fund and each major special revenue fund that has a legally adopted budget.
Annual budgets should be adopted by each government.
The budgetary comparisons required of state and local governments under GASB standards:
Can be presented as a schedule within required supplementary information (RSI) or as a statement in the basic financial statements.
Must be a schedule included as part of RSI.
Continues to be a statement included in the basic financial statements.
Is no longer required.
An approach to budgeting that requires the very existence of each program and the amount of resources requested to be allocated to that program to be justified each year is called:
Incremental budgeting.
Zero-based budgeting.
Performance budgeting.
Planning-programming-budgeting.
Which of the following does not represent a performance measurement group under the balanced scorecard?
Customer
Internal business processes
Economy and efficiency.
Learning and growth
Governments that choose to report service efforts and accomplishments (SEA):
Must adhere to GASB SEA guidance.
Must adhere to GASB SEA guidance only if the SEA report is part of the CAFR.
Must adhere to guidance provided by the Association of Government Accountants (AGA) because GASB has not issued standards addressing SEA.
May refer to guidance provided by the GASB, the AGA, or other professional organizations.
Efficiency measures, as the term is used in the service efforts and accomplishments (SEA) literature, can be described as:
Measures that relate the quantity or cost of resources used to units of output.
Measures that relate to the amount of financial and nonfinancial resources used in a program or process.
Measures that relate costs to outcomes.
Measures that reflect either the quantity or quality of a service provided
Which of the following provides guidance to government managers and auditors in determining appropriate and allowable costs chargeable to federal grants?
Financial Accounting Standards Board pronouncements.
Government Finance Officers Association best practices documents.
Principles published by the Association of Government Accountants.
Guidelines issued by the Office of Management and Budget.
Under the hierarchy of GAAP for a state and local government, which of the following has the highest level of authority?
AICPA Practice Bulletins if specifically made applicable to state and local governments by the AICPA (and cleared by the GASB).
Technical releases of the Accounting and Auditing Policy Committee of the FASAB.
Implementation guides (“Qs and As”) published by the GASB staff.
AICPA Industry Audit and Accounting Guides.
The scope of an auditing engagement is described in:
GAAS
An engagement letter
The "Auditor's Responsibility" section of the audit report
GAGAS
Ramon Fuentes is the new head of the State Department of Motor Vehicles. He has observed several situations that make him believe that there may be issues with the department's internal controls. He wants to engage a CPA to provide him with assurance that the department's internal controls is functioning as it should. This type of engagement is called:
An attestation engagement
An operational audit
An internal control audit
A general audit
The GAGAS conceptual framework for independence should be employed
Annually
At the end of the audit engagement, just prior to issuing the audit report
When taking on a nonaudit service engagement at an audited entity
All of the above
An additional auditing standard imposed by GAGAS when compared to GAAS is
The auditor must maintain independence in mental attitude in all matters relating to the audit
The auditor must either express an opinion regarding the financial statements, taken as a whole, or state that an opinion cannot be expressed.
The auditor must identify in the auditor's report those circumstances in which generally accepted accounting principles have not been consistently observed.
Documentation should be provided concerning evidence of supervisory review of work performed.
Single audits performed pursuant to OMB's Uniform Guidance
Apply to all entities that receive $750,000 or more of federal funds in a fiscal year.
Apply to not-for-profit organizations only.
Require the auditor to use generally accepted government accounting standards when conducting the audit.
Are triggered when federal funds are expended that are associated with a grant.
Under the GASB reporting model, materiality is determined:
For opinion units
At the government-wide level
At fund level
For governmental and business-type activities and the aggregate discretely presented component units only
An auditor must audit as a major program
All Type A programs, unless the auditor has identified one as low risk
All Type A programs, including any the auditor considers low-risk programs.
One-fourth of all Type B programs
At least 40 percent of all federal funds received.
Dan Cole is the head of the county's Division of Animal Control. The division receives funding from both the state and federal governments and is required to have its audit done using GAGAS. You and Dan were fraternity brothers at All State University, and your families often celebrate holidays and special occasions together. Dan has asked your audit firm to perform the division's financial audit this year. What should you do?
Contact the state board of accountancy for authorization to accept the audit.
Decline the audit because you want to avoid any perceived independence issues.
Accept the audit but disclose your relationship in the engagement letter and audit report.
Refer to the ethics guidance in GAGAS before making a decision to accept the engagement.
The auditor's responsibility for required supplementary information (RSI) is:
The same as with the basic financial statements.
To perform certain limited procedures to ensure that RSI is fairly presented in relation to the audited financial statements.
The same as for all information in the financial section of a comprehensive annual financial report.
To render an opinion as to the fairness of the RSI and whether it conforms to generally accepted accounting principles.
Evaluation of government financial performance is important for which of the following reasons?
Credit analysts use it to determine whether bonds should be issued
Investors use it to make decisions about bond investments.
Oversight bodies use it to develop new laws.
Managers use it to evaluate day to day operations.
Which of the following terms or concepts focuses primarily on a government's ability to generate enough cash over a 30- or 60-day period to pay its bills?
Interperiod equity
Financial position
Budgetary solvency
Cash solvency
Why does GASB prefer to use the term economic condition rather than financial condition?
Economic condition considers the probability that the government will meet both financial and service obligations currently and in the future but financial condition does not.
Financial condition does not consider the ability to maintain service levels.
Economic condition focuses on both the ability and willingness to meet financial and service obligations.
Financial condition focuses primarily on liquidity
Factors that influence a government's financial condition include which of the following?
Financial factors, such as governmental fund financial ratios.
Environmental factors, such as community needs and resources.
Organizational factors, such as management practices and legislative policies.
Which of the following environmental factors reveals the entity's underlying philosophies regarding willingness to support higher taxes, issuances of long-term debt, and increased social services?
Political culture
Community needs and resources
External economic conditions
Management practices and legislative policies
Which of the following would be an effective means of benchmarking?
Comparing the city's key ratios to those of special purpose governments in the area.
Comparing current-period ratios to published medians of the same ratios for cities of similar size or in the same geographic region.
Comparing key ratios to published medians of the same ratios for larger cities in other parts of the country.
Comparing current-period ratios to estimates for future periods.
Which of the following conditions could signal decreasing fiscal stress?
Increasing unemployment.
Decreasing property values.
Increasing revenues relative to expenditures.
Increasing levels of unfunded pension obligations and other postemployment retirement benefits.
Rating agencies, such as FitchRatings, Moody's Investor Service and Standard & Poor's, produce bond ratings that
Are created using the exact same measures and weights.
Allow users to know how much better one issuing entity's financial condition is than another's.
Focus both on quantitative and qualitative factors using proprietary models.
Are intended to be precise indicators of the government's long-term financial condition.
Which of the following suggests a government that is relying primarily on revenues it directly controls?
Property taxes, 20%; charges for services, 70%; grants and contributions, 5%; investment income, 5%
Property taxes, 20%; charges for services, 60%; grants and contributions, 10%; investment income, 10%.
Property taxes, 40%; charges for services, 40%; grants and contributions, 10%; investment income, 10%.
Property taxes, 60%; charges for services, 5%; grants and contributions, 30%; investment income, 5%.
What is Electronic Municipal Market Access, or EMMA?
A library-based service that provides information about state and local governments that have issued debt.
A fee-based service that provides information to investors and credit analysts about government bond issues.
An online service that allows users to learn more about the municipal securities market.
A source of municipal finance information developed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
